Saturday, May 07, 2016

Bee inspired breakthrough in the development of autonomous robots

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have created a
computer model mimicking how bees avoid hitting walls. This they expect will
pave way for breakthrough in the development of autonomous robots.

The researchers add “We are interested in how bees are
capable of navigating complex environments. Experimental evidence shows that
they use an estimate of the speed that patterns move across their compound eyes
(angular velocity) to control their behaviour and avoid obstacles; however the
brain circuitry used to extract this information is not understood. We have
created a model that uses a small number of assumptions to demonstrate a
plausible set of circuitry. Since bees only extract an estimate of angular
velocity they show differences from the expected behaviour for perfect angular
velocity detection, and our model reproduces these differences.”